B92 



Education of the Farm Worker. 



[Aug., 



With a " system " of education which stops short at such 

 results we cannot possibly be satisfied; and those who have the 

 interests of child life at heart must work, in season and out of 

 season, to secure for the workers' children some real education 

 during at least those most imiportant years between fourteen* 

 and eighteen, when so many wonderful secrets of life begin to 

 reveal themselves. 



[ have said that education is a difficult subject to discuss. It 

 is difficult because it has become depressing. In the campaign 

 for economy which has been going on in every quarter, one of 

 the first fields for retrenchment has been that of education. 

 The Education Act of 1918 aroused great hopes; but now we 

 find that all schemes for continuation education not already in 

 operation are indefinitely suspended. Even the county agri- 

 cultural committees, which by arrangement may take over 

 certain duties hitherto performed by the education committees, 

 have been told by the Minister that " while the last thing in 

 which he wished economy to take place was education," he 

 was obliged to ask them to spend less. The worst economy of 

 all- is the attempt to save money on the teachers. 



It is with this question of the teachers that we get near the 

 heart of the matter. In the Farmers' Union Year Booh, 1921, it 

 was declared that "It is unsound to have our rural schools 

 indifferent copies of our urban schools. They must find their 

 inspiration from their rural surroundings and instil a real love 

 of the country and of nature." In short, the schools should 

 have a life and power of their own. Yet how can we expect 

 this when we realise the inadequate provision made for teaching 

 in rural areas? I yield to no one in my admiration of the rural 

 teachers' heroic struggle under adverse conditions, but they, 

 I am sure, will be the first to agree that great reforms are 

 necessary. The disparity between the salaries in rural areas 

 and those paid in towns is too great, with the result that the 

 towns attract the best teachers. This does not, of course, mean 

 that no good teachers find their way into the country. The 

 headships of country schools often attract assistant masters 

 from urban areas. The difficulty is that the county councils, 

 which control the country schools, often have a large number of 

 schools under their charge, and are therefore subject to the 

 strong temptation of having cheap supplementary teachers. 

 Although most head teachers in country schools of seventy to 

 eighty children are certificated, the standard is satisfied very 

 often with either an additional uncertificated teacher or sup- 

 plementary teacher, or both. The number of teacher?* 



